


You should see how you look

by a_virgin_who_cant_write



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 07:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18405953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_virgin_who_cant_write/pseuds/a_virgin_who_cant_write
Summary: On the SMH group chat via twitter, an out-of-context picture of Dex and Nursey surfaces. This fuels Nursey into making Dex more comfortable with masculine physical contact by teasing him as much as possible with masculine physical contact.





	You should see how you look

Derek was starting to peel a tangerine to eat during team breakfast when he heard Ollie laugh further down the table. Wicks looked over his shoulder into Ollie’s phone, held out a fist to bump and said “sick” approvingly. He saw Ollie typing out something, and as Derek bit the sweet first slice, he received a message from Ollie into the Haus team chat: a link to a tweet.

They’d gone play a friendly match against a rival school last weekend, and it so happened that a local newspaper was interviewing athletes for an article on university benefits for sports team members. It had been arranged so that a couple of hockey players from both teams were interviewed before the match, meaning that they’d had a bit more time than normal to spare in the venue before the match.

The tweet Ollie had linked to was from a hilariously godawful hockey stan’s twitter. Bitty had found a funny tweet from her he shared into the team’s group chat, and half the team had started ironically checking her timeline like a newsfeed. She had a charisma that shone in her tweets, a passionate energy not unlike a foreign soap opera. Apparently, she’d gotten ahold of some candids from that interview, and she’d tweeted her three favorites.

Biggest in the tweet was a picture of him and Dex matching in zipped up Samwell jackets. Nursey remembered the moment: he had been pulling on Dex’s chin hairs, chirping him over his thin wispy whiskers. Dex had retorted with a chirp about Nursey’s body hair, and Nursey had pushed him on the shoulder and said something stupid to walk off to see the interviews. The picture caught a moment right in the middle of all that: Dex looked at the ground, a cheeky smile forming after his chirp, while Nursey’s souring expression glanced at Dex’s non-existent moustache, his hands releasing their grip on Dex’s beard hairs.

It looked like a freaking Dutch painting of two lovers just about to kiss, Dex’s smile looking shy rather than sly, and Nursey’s literal hair pulling looked like a soft caress meant to guide Dex’s lips to his, his eyes focused on Dex’s mouth. It looked far more intimate and gorgeous than it had any right to. Nursey was tempted to make it his phone wallpaper.

Nursey just let out a small chuckle at the picture, amused at the situation but bemused at finding himself in the middle of it. Then he heard a groan from Dex’s seat, his ears pink and his eyes a bit manically panicked, and he couldn’t help but to laugh out loud.

In the Haus group chat Ollie and Wicks kept making jokes about the two of them. Bitty only said that he had DM’d @SnowysMascara to see if there was any chance she’d delete the pictures, but Nursey knew that there was no way she’d taken them herself, meaning it wouldn’t change a thing, so he just laughed and texted, “@Dex my man, we’ve been caught” and “we’re gonna have to be more careful w our pregame smooches.”

Chowder sent a small keysmash, Ollie and Wicks took the fuel for the chirps, and Dex only sent a middle finger emoji before, as Nursey saw himself, putting his phone in silent and out of the breakfast table.

(Dex caught him staring and repeated his emoji’s motion in real life. Nursey blew a kiss, but Dex didn’t catch it at all, laser-focused into his toast trying to hide his discomfort.)

Nursey had noticed that Dex had a strange relationship with masculine contact. He had no problem with the guys pricking his face, or slapping his ass, or dramatically leaning on his shoulder, until anybody else made any mention of it -even positive, after which he’d become avoidant for a while. It seemed like he was either used to the touch as background noise, or so completely out of his element with it that he did not realize how much contact would be appropriate to share between bros before getting flustered. Nursey honestly didn’t know which possibility would make more sense with Dex personally and what he knew of Maine.

What Nursey did know was that he was not a fan of how vaguely homophobic it all seemed (they were juniors, god damn it, how was Dex still hung up on physical contact?) And he was a fan of Dex’s indignant reactions, so he decided he wanted to start playing up. He’d make small comments to Dex about the picture whenever he got the chance, and every single time Dex would pull a beautifully strained face and give a different, perfectly disgruntled implosion of a reaction. And when Dex stopped, Nursey decided a new picture would do the trick to continue chirping away.

\--

He enlisted the help of Ollie, who he knew was always up for a good prank and who in turn enlisted the help of Wicks. Nursey went and got an expensive, long-stay black eyeliner, which if they had any leftovers of he’d give to Lardo, whenever they saw her. Then, back at the Haus that night in the attic, he took his shirt off and laid down on his stomach on Ollie’s bed (or was it Wicks’?) He handed the tiny container to Wicks, the one in the duo who had better penmanship.

“Dude. Isn’t this eyeliner?” Asked Wicks, confused.

“Chyeah. I know I told you I was gonna go with that Halloween face paint shit, but we need it to stay put for a while.” Nursey explained. “I went to this makeup store and told the girl I needed something that would stay forever, basically, and she recommended this thing.” He turned his arm around, showing a perfectly bold, if maybe a bit blurred, squiggly line on his wrist. “I got a little on my arm to test it and I doesn’t really wash off easily.”

“Huh.” Wicks drew the first stroke on Nursey’s lower back, and Nursey suppressed a shudder at the sudden contact. “And you’re going through all this trouble to take a prank picture of Dex?”

“You’ve seen how worked up he gets, man.” Nursey laughed softly. “Once we start a collection of pictures, he’s gonna go bona fide nuts. Chill, it’s gonna be better than when he built his fort of solitude a little back.”

Wicks shot Ollie a small, knowing look. Ollie looked back with the same type of expression that would go with a shrug but keeping his hands steady in his pockets. “You can’t rile him up too bad, though. We need Dex to still want to be your partner.”

Nursey snorted at the word ‘partner.’ It somehow sounded odd. “Yeah, I know. But, like, he gets pissed off and has these big explosions of anger, but then we sit together at breakfast with Chowder and we’re cool again. I don’t think he’s good at holding grudges.”

Ollie stifled a laugh with a cough. Wicks drew a couple more lines on Nursey’s back and then leaned away. “Alright, dude, how’s this look?”

“I can’t see it.”

“Not you, Nursey. Ollie, what d’you think.”

“That’s…” Wicks looked at the small symbol on Nursey’s back. “My dude, you should be proud. That looks fucking tight,” he said holding out his fist.

“Nice! Thanks, man.” They fist bumped, Wicks snapped a picture and showed it to Nursey. “Now, what do you think, Nursey?”

The symbol was of a wrench and a leaf framed like a hockey stick and puck. It was big enough that you didn’t have to look for it to see it, but small enough that you probably would have to stare a bit before deciphering what it is. Nursey thought for a moment that perhaps he was going too far with this, as on his skin the image did seem more like an intimate memento than he thought it would, but he had already started this and he was going to see it through.

“It’s great!” Nursey got up and gave Wicks a bro handshake ending in a hug. “Thanks, man.”

“You know, I’ve been thinking we should get matching tats, Wicky,” chirped Ollie, pouting exaggeratedly.

“Oh, fuck off,” he replied, laughing.

Wicks taped a piece of paper to Nursey’s skin to act as a cover to make sure the fake tattoo didn’t smudge overnight, and in the morning when Nursey took it off he was glad to see little ink had bled into the paper or around his skin. He put on his clothes and he tried to make sure not to rub on his lower back too much as he put his bag over his shoulder.

After practice in the locker room, Nursey waited until Ollie and Wicks were in position, phones covertly in their hands, and Dex was in position standing in front of the locker next to his, and he took off his undershirt. He leaned into his locker with his arched back a bit, to show off his fake tattoo, pretending to struggle to put his Jersey and gear away.

“What are you doing, Nursey?” Asked Tango, laughing.

“What’s that in your back?” Asked Bitty, sounding kind of concerned.

Dex was silent, so Nursey got worried that his plan hadn’t worked out, but then Ollie hollered, “Yo, quit staring, Poindexter!” Just as Nursey had told them to say when they got a good picture.

“That’s a wrench and a leaf,” Dex noted.

Whiskey glanced once in Nursey’s direction, and without missing a beat said, “you all realize that’s just makeup, right? A tattoo would be flushed as it heals, and he wouldn’t have had time to get it done before without us noticing earlier.”

Silence fell on the locker room until a loud chorus of ‘ding’ notified in unison a text message arriving on many different phones. Nursey looked at his phone, and the picture sent to the team’s group chat was glorious. From Ollie’s angle, you couldn’t really see Nursey’s mark, only Dex’s and Bitty’s faces transfixed on Nursey’s ass. Bitty looked straight up confused, but Dex looked wanting.

“Jesus Christ!” Dex screamed when he saw the picture. “Really, Nursey!?” His entire face and ears were red, and he squinted his eyes towards Nursey. Nursey just guffawed, and as soon as he laughed other guys in the team started laughing as well.

Even Bitty laughed a little, although just a little. “Oh, my goodness. But Nursey, you do realize that’s a big fine, right?”

“What? Why?”

“Heteronormative pranks have been outlawed since Shitty got into the bylaws,” explained Bitty, as if it was obvious. Frankly, it should have been obvious, but the prank hadn’t really registered in Nursey’s mind as homophobic or anything. Way to go counterproductive.

“How didn’t you sweat it off during practice?” Asked Hops. He made a tentative motion as if to see if it would rub off, then stopped as he seemed to realize he would be rubbing dangerously close to Nursey’s ass.

“How did you even paint it on in the first place?” Asked Louis, still wearing enough gear that, as he tried to touch that part of his own back with his hands, he strained like he’d pull a muscle.

“So, are tramp stamps a common way to prank teammates here at Samwell?” Asked Bully, grinning too smugly for a guy who might get fined for language.

“Is this what my life is now?” Dex had his head between his hands looking to the ground, completely devastated. “Is this how you’re going to be tormenting me now?”

“No, man, this really was too much,” Nursey replied, suppressing his laughter at Dex’s dramatism. “I promise you, I’m not going to make any more elaborate pranks to get funny, seemingly gay pictures of you.”

“Hey, Nursey?” Asked Tango, tentative than usual. “How are you even planning to take that fake tattoo off?”

\--

It was during a kegster that Nursey found himself with a new chance to get a funny, seemingly gay picture of Dex. And without an elaborate prank in between, too.

The turnout was a bit smaller than years prior, as Nursey hadn’t networked as widely as Ransom and Holster, but the Haus was still packed. Nursey saw a kid who looked an awful lot like a reporter for the Swallow, which gave him an idea. He’d give Nursey a small window of time: the reporter would take pictures of the party, searching for a scoop, until he was detected by any member of the team. He’d be uploading the pictures to the Swallow’s Snapchat story and would end up deleting them once he got caught and got kicked out of the party; but chances would be somebody else from the staff would already have screenshot the worst ones by then, if there was anything juicy captured.

He found Dex talking to Hops by the stairs, near the beer pong table. The frosh was animatedly telling a story from his high school, something about a fire alarm and lesbian make-outs that really didn’t sound like he should be telling anybody, but that had Dex in stitches. Nursey walked up to them and leaned onto Dex, his elbow resting on his teammate’s shoulder.

“… And then Ms. Bean walks in all like ‘you girls need to come out!’ Rachel still hadn’t found her glasses, but Ginny was already out the door. She looked like, you know when kittens try to drink milk, but they don’t know how, so they just faceplant onto the bowl? Like that, but in pink lipstick”

“Dude, what the hell!” Dex laughed loudly. Nursey could smell the tub juice in his breath. Dex leaned forward in a snort and really took notice of Nursey being there. “Fuck! Nurse, how long have you been here?”

Nursey smiled as charming as he could, “you know I’m always by your side, sweetie.”

Nursey stuck out his tongue and Dex pushed him off his shoulder, his face doing something strange. “Fuck off, you weirdo. Are you still going on those pictures from two weeks ago?” Nursey raised his eyebrows at Dex a couple of times as confirmation, and said “we’re meant to be together, Poindexter.”

Hops shifted awkwardly. “So, um, should I leave you guys alone?”

Dex said “no” at the same time Nursey looked into Hops eyes and said, severely but with a smile in his eyes, “yes.” Dex turned to Nursey and back to Hops, told him “I’ll be in the reading room”, and walked off, really headed towards the kitchen. Hops shot a confused glance at Nursey, “where is there a reading room in this Haus?”

Nursey went to his room, locked the door just in case, laid back on his bed, and logged into his Snapchat.

Even in the small thumbnail of the Swallow’s story, he could recognize a smatter of coppery orange for Dex’s hair. He opened it and skipped through their adverts and other pictures, not paying any attention until he got to his money shot.

The picture was a bit disappointing. It was actually focused on a girl drinking a shot of vodka rather than the three of them, Hops being almost out of frame. However, Nursey wasn’t mad at how this picture made it seem like it had been him that had made Dex laugh like that. After all, it wasn’t specifically making Dex mad that Nursey liked, but getting a big reaction out of him. His eyes seemed to be looking wistfully at Dex, so he’d be the one getting more chirps rather than Poindexter, but it would still make Dex freak out, so it’d be fun, still. He took his screenshot and the picture changed into the vodka girl dancing. Nursey was sure the previous one was the last picture in the story so, confused, he kept tapping.

He was not ready for the next picture. Now completely in frame and much closer, him and Dex took up the entirety of his screen, once again Hops being relegated to half an appearance out of frame. Nursey’s knees were touching Dex’s and their hips were closer together than he’d remembered. Nursey’s face was very close to Dex’s, as he’d planned, but the picture looked as if Dex was leaning his head back after Nursey’s kiss, Nursey’s tongue out looking dirty rather than cheeky. His faces were so close, Nursey hadn’t really realized how close he’d been to Dex.

His mind was invaded with the image of Dex, right there in his personal space, having his hands travel through his buzzed hair, down his broad back, down the side of his narrow hips. He’d really gotten into Dex’s space, and he’d let him. He still smelled the ghost of Dex’s breath, rich in tub juice, but somehow not completely disgusting. Rather familiar. Nice.

Nursey decided that picture was too much, took a screenshot anyway, and went to tell Bitty that there was a Swallow photographer in the party. To his delight, Bitty told him that he’d already sent Ollie to find him, and when Nursey found Ollie, he’d already kicked him out. Nursey checked his Snapchat and the Haus party snaps had been deleted from their story. He’d gotten screenshots of both pictures of himself, though, so, all in all, he was content with how his plan had worked out.

He walked up to their makeshift DJ booth like, “this is so great. Louis, play something victorious,” and then went to get some more tub juice for himself. He sent the picture of Dex laughing, cropped so that only him and Dex were in focus, to the Haus group chat, and captioned it “bae is so pretty when he laughs :)"

Wicks was the only one who sent a chirp before Dex went, “seriously, Nursey? You’re a huge douchebag.” Ollie replied, “seems like tonight you’re sleeping alone, @Nursey.” Ollie, Wicks, and Nursey were the only ones that laughed, having a bit more banter before losing interest. Bitty and Chowder did not speak at all until the morning, when Bitty called for breakfast, not acknowledging the picture at all. Dex didn’t antagonize him during breakfast but left as soon as he had finished.

\--

That profound coldness that Dex had reacted with was the correct reaction to stop this nonsense, Nursey thought. It had been funny at that moment, but it hadn’t been nearly as funny as the fire with which he’d reacted to the first one or to the making of the second one. Nursey was feeling steadily more like an actual bully rather than just an irreverent, overfamiliar bro. And it was obvious that it wasn’t just Dex’s resentment that he was earning. Nursey decided he would make up for it.

That Wednesday in the Haus Dex was helping Bitty bake a cake for Chowder’s birthday in two days. Bitty was making a sponge cake while Dex mixed together fillings and frostings. Nursey sat on the kitchen table with one of his readings, listening as Dex and Bitty talked and dropping in his two cents every so often. There was a bit of an undercurrent energy, but not enough for Nursey to chicken out and away from the kitchen. A minute after Bitty put the cake in the oven his phone started ringing, and as he answered, his voice all mellow, he went to the next room to give himself a bit of privacy.

It also gave Dex and Nursey privacy. He stood up and walked up closer to Dex. “Hey,” he said, hesitantly.

Dex tensed immediately when he noticed Nursey, so he shifted away a little less in Dex’s space. “What is it?”

“You’re mad about something,” Nursey tried.

“I wonder what about,” Dex snarked as he put more muscle into his cream whip.

“You’re mad about the pictures in the group chat.”

“You think?” Dex stopped stirring and lifted his whisk, checking the cream’s consistency. Then he turned around, one of his arms grasping the counter behind him. Nursey hated how cold Dex’s anger had gotten, manifested in the icy glare he shot him when he said, “I am not your boyfriend, Nursey. Cut it the fuck out. I’m none of your business.”

“Why do you take it so seriously, Dex?” Nursey wasn’t sure how much to approach during this conversation, but he was willing to explain himself to him if it was necessary. “I’ve been chirping and teasing but I haven’t really done anything that’s that weird or, like, boyfriend-y, have I? I’m not trying to be weird.”

Dex looked at him strangely, with something more than anger in his expression. “For real.” His tone was so flat Nurse wasn’t sure that was a question. “You’ve been really fucking weird these past weeks, man. Just FYI. And I don’t know…” He trailed off and started checking his fillings again.

Dex was being cagey enough for Derek to have trouble taking him seriously. “Dex, tell me what’s going on. It’s chill, isn’t it?”

“I’m done with my part for the cake,” Dex told himself. He looked up at Nursey, but like a mask, his face was the perfect image of detached formality. One of his hands clapped and held on Nursey’s arm as he told him, “all I can tell you is that you better cut this shit out, and right now I don’t want to hear why you’ve been like this.” His voice was trained even. “I need to go work on a project and I need to focus on that.”

Nursey took a moment too long to react, and he was about to say something, anything, when he heard his phone notification go off. Dex took his cue to walk off.

Nursey looked at the notification. He had been at’d on the group chat. He opened it, and it was because of a picture that Louis had taken. He’d sent many pictures of the Haus to the group chat, mostly just showing off its shitty architecture. But the picture he took of the kitchen, it just so happened to have been just now, late afternoon sun warm through the blinds, himself and Dex close together in their moment.

This picture didn’t have any of the theatricality of the previous pictures at all. Months ago, it would have gone without notice. But Nursey had played up enough that just showing up in the same frame as Poindexter in vaguely warm lighting was enough for Wicks to send eyes emojis and Ollie to start chirping.

Nursey wasn’t laughing when he texted, “yo, Louis, not cool to take this moment from us.” Wicks texted back about privacy for two D-men, and a couple of other guys kept the banter going. But Nursey did what he could so he just let them be.

Soon after, after Bitty was done glazing the cake, he asked Nursey to do a murder run with him, being short in a whole bunch of groceries. Once they stepped out of the Haus and out of earshot from anybody in it, Bitty didn’t waste time.

“Derek,” he started, and Nursey could literally feel how he suddenly embodied his power and authority as a captain towards him. “Tell me, why have you been harassing Dex the past month?”

Nursey’s reacted negatively to the word ‘harass’, but he kept down and took an unnoticeable breath before denying the claims. “What? Chill, Bitty, I haven’t been any different than usual.

Bitty just looked at Nursey steadily, his resolve unmoving. “Nursey.”

“It’s true! I--" Nursey coughed, betraying himself.

“All I know is that he’s been tenser and there’s been more pictures of you two in the group chat.” Nursey wasn’t looking at Bitty anymore. “When we were baking just now, Dex seemed out of it, and I couldn’t get him to continue any good conversation at all.”

“Did he say something to you, though?” Nursey’s voice had a bit more edge than he was comfortable with, but he couldn’t help it. That would have been such a schoolyard sort of move, ratting him out to the team captain before letting him speak for himself.

“He wouldn’t need to, Derek.”

“But he did, didn’t he?” Nursey balled his hands into fists, but he put on a smirk with a quirked brow. “Why else would you be asking me about it? Why would you think it’s the pictures that have him like that? But, you know, if you understand each other so well, I’m sure you can text him to help you with the groceries, captain. He’ll understand.”

“Nursey, don’t be like that.” Bitty’s tone was so sugary now. So manipulative. “I’m just concerned--”

“That it’ll affect the team? Ollie and Wicks already went through that, chief. Chill.”

“That it’s affecting you, personally,” Bitty spit out, captain voice back on, but his energy focused rather than explosive. Nursey stopped on his tracks for half a second and hoped Bitty didn’t notice. “You’re pushing him too much… He knows to hold back and endure it because he’s a team player and he needs his hockey scholarship, but what are you going to do if he decides enough is enough?”

“He wouldn’t, though, would he?” Nursey replied, somewhat weakly behind his affectedly even tone. “I mean, why should I even care?” Bitty shot him a look he wasn’t expecting, so he tripped on his words a bit. “We both know he’s more bark than bite, right?” He winced internally at his own words but continued. “He gets his emotions out in a huff and then we’re cool. That’s…” he was running out of breath. That’s unusual. He sighed and finished, “that’s how it’s always been.”

“Well, I’m not sure I could count on that.” Bitty had shoved his hands in his pockets, visibly uncomfortable. “I think you’re taking him for granted, a bit?”

Nursey looked ahead at the street. They were barely out of the frat row. Bitty couldn’t know about how honest he’d been that day, about how he hadn’t staged anything, how he had just done what had felt most natural. How, despite his authenticity, he’d been farcical long enough for it to have been meaningless. Nursey realized himself, his balled fists, his gritted teeth. This time he couldn’t conceal his breath as he riled himself back. “Message received. But, Bitty, yo, if we’re going to be talking about Dex for this whole run, I’m seriously out. I don’t even know why I should care.”

Bitty visibly didn’t like the sound of that, giving him another weary look, but he conceded. “You know, Louis came through, didn’t he? As a DJ during the kegster…”

\--

The following morning after practice, coach Hall pulled Nurse and Dex aside. They’d missed one pass too many, Dex using too much force and Nursey getting too ahead of him.

“I don’t know what has gotten into you two these past weeks, but I need you to figure it out and cut it out.” He gave himself a couple of seconds to glare at either of them before continuing. “Need I remind you that our season starts next weekend, against Boston?” He glared directly at Nursey, and he gulped a bit too loudly. “We do not have time to change our team’s set-up, but keep up this behavior, Nurse, and I’m benching you in favor of Tangredi.”

“What!?” Nursey looked at coach, then at Dex, then back at coach. “Coach, if I may, I haven’t--"

“You may not,” coach Hall interrupted. “I am aware that you’ve been scoring better and have checked more in our past games, but if you cannot play with your fellow defense then that’s not useful. When we’ve paired Poindexter with Tangredi, he adapts well and plays just about as well a with you, whereas if you” he put emphasis in that ‘you’ “play with anybody else, you plummet. We do not need a half-baked forward playing defense. We need a defenseman.”

Dex coughed, uncomfortable. Nursey narrowed his eyes but shook it off. “I’ll get us back on our groove, coach. I promise.”

“You better, Nurse. Poindexter,” coach looked at Dex now, “I’ve been addressing Nurse, but don’t think you’re fully off the hook, here. You used to play far better with Nurse in your line and putting you with Tangredi is a big risk against a team like Boston. Get your head back in the game, or you might see yourself on the bench more often as well, with all that entails.”

“Yes, sir. I’m focused, still.”

“Good. If during tomorrow practice you goof off like today, we’re moving you two around.” He looked one last time at either of them, Nursey a bit defeated, Dex unfazed and determined, and he sighed softly, and gave them a tight smile. “You two share such a strong chemistry, we would not want to bench you. Just focus your animosity back into the ice how it belongs, and you’ll be fine. Now, go hit the showers.”

As soon as coach turned his attention away, Dex broke character and glared at Nursey. There was the fire that Nursey knew. If looks could kill, Nursey would be cremated. He chucked to himself, and he was glad the even distance of his voice didn’t betray how nervous he felt.

Having been held back, about half of the team had already showered when Nursey started taking off his gear. While Nursey showered, his nerves started to fester into rage. There was no way the coaches knew of how he’d been teasing Dex lately, was there? Had he really been so out of it as to warrant only him getting called out?

Nursey made sure to splash himself with cold water before walking out of the showers. He walked past Dex, who was heading for his shower and didn’t even spare a glance to him. This was too much. He waited for Dex just outside the locker room after getting dressed and ready for class, and as soon as he walked out, Nursey punched him in the shoulder as playfully and benign as he could.

“What the hell, Nurse?” Dex held his shoulder with his opposite hand, clearly not in pain but just as clearly not tolerating Nursey’s shit.

“Coach said we need to get over whatever bad blood is between us. I’m trying to get us back to speed.” Nursey said with a smirk plastered on. Dex tried to seem impassive.

“How the fuck you figure that’s the way to get over it, though?” Dex looked at Nursey up and down, searching for the vulnerability that Nursey knew not to show.

“Well,” Nursey kept cool and leaned towards the wall, “if you talked to me instead of Bitty or the coaches, I’d think of a better way to approach this.”

“The fuck?”

“Bitty talked to me yesterday about how I’m harassing you?” Dex winced at the word just as much as Nursey had, but Nursey didn’t step down. “I mean, yo, that’s a big word, Dex!” Nursey heard his voice get a bit hoarse, so he raised it a bit and hoped it didn’t betray his intentionally lax posture. “Why would you tell him that shit before talking to me?”

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Dex shot back firmly, but with no fury in his voice. “I wouldn’t denounce you like that, I’m not that spiteful.” But then what Nursey said started to sink in, and his anger started bubbling. “But you are that dense, aren’t you?” He looked at Nursey in the eye before continuing, “that you need a fucking crowd to tell you that you’re being a douchebag to me for it to get through your head?”

Nursey felt his stomach knot a bit, so he kept his voice rough. “Dex, I literally tried to apologize yesterday.”

“But when Louis sent that pic to the team chat, you hopped right back onto your bullshit, didn’t you?” Dex stepped closer to Nursey, one of his hands visibly eager to close the distance and grab Nursey by the collar, but still open, contained, trying not to escalate too much. “I have been telling you to knock down your shit. I’ve been calling you out since the first damn picture.”

“That wasn’t…” Nursey stopped himself, unsure that this was a good time for Dex to believe him. “But, like, even within your anger you’ve been so chill about it, haven’t you?” Nursey tried.

“You don’t get to decide how I feel about your bullshit! If I say when, it means fucking when!”

Nursey felt some guilt creeping into his nerves, making him soft. Why did he even start teasing about the pictures? “Maybe I wanted to push you a little.” He looked at Dex with all the determination he could fake. “Maybe I think you freaking out so much when another dude touches you is ridiculous. You have these stupid goddamn implosions whenever you realize a dude has been, I don’t know, fucking acknowledging your presence? And I think it’s damn time to address this and get it over with.”

Dex visibly deflated. “What the fuck are you even talking about, Derek?”

Hearing his first name come out from Dex’s mouth was basically a sucker punch straight to his head. Suddenly, he understood jackshit.

Dex saw Nursey’s confusion and carried on. “Sure, being manhandled and teased about it like that will always raise an alarm in my head, since I just didn’t grow up with that sort of contact. But I don’t think I freak out as much when you’re all over me, dude, which you are basically all the time.”

“What are you saying, Poindexter? I’m not a clinger.”

“Dude,” Dex looked away, his ears a bit pink, “when you draped yourself all over me during the kegster, I realized later I didn’t question at all why you’d do that. It felt natural.” Dex looked back at him. “You’re always up in my space. Clapping my shoulders, slapping my ass, leaning onto me…”

Nursey looked to the ground. This was starting to feel like a different discussion. “Oh, um. I hadn’t noticed I was coming off like... that?”

“Oh, no, it’s okay.” Dex’s voice had no bite left in it. “What I’m saying is, I realized I don’t mind if it’s you who’s doing all that. I understand that’s just how you are when you’re close to other people. It’s weird, but whatever.”

Nursey hoped his tan was dark enough for Dex not to notice his blush. Was it only him that clinged enough to make Dex nervous? Was it only with Dex that he was physical enough to make it weird? “Yo, chill, man.”

Dex laughed a bit. “Yeah, it’s chill. Though I had to talk it over with Shitty over Skype.” They stood in silence for a second, Nurse second guessing himself, before Dex remembered what had brought this conversation about. “So, you’ve been doing all this shit about the pictures and the cyberbullying” Dex made a face at that word so Nursey knew he was just being flippant, “all to get me to be more physical with other dudes? Seems counterintuitive, dumbass.”

“To be fair, the last picture I honestly wanted the team to stop chirping.” Nursey looked at Dex earnestly. He felt really calm, Dex had managed to defuse the situation well. The air was clear enough to foul up again. “But, nah, dude. I just like seeing you get all pissy and weird. I mean, babe,” Dex’s face twitched but remained relatively stoic after it, even while Nursey dropped his voice into a low, intimate purr. “You should see how you look when I talk to you like this.”

Dex sighed and folded his arms. His blush was pretty noteworthy against his furrowed brows. “This is mental, but I did think you were doing this to rile me up, and it just made it all the more infuriating.”

Nursey raised his eyebrows at the past tense. “Dude, you didn’t know I was just playing.”

“I suspected as much since the fucking tattoo.” Dex’s face lit up with a snicker. “How long did it take you to take that ink off your back?”

Nursey smirked back. “Clearly not as long as it’s taken you to chill the fuck out about it.”

Dex snorted a laugh, unfolding his arms. He looked thoughtful for half a second, then visibly bashful as he opened his arms. “Let’s hug it out, Nurse.”

Nursey felt warm as he enveloped Dex in his arms. He felt Dex press his face on Nursey’s shoulder and Nursey couldn’t help but melt a little into the hug, his eyes shut, content.

_Ck-Click._

Nursey looked up to find Chowder snapping a picture of them with his phone, his grin somewhere between gleeful and smarmy. “Hey guys!”

Dex stiffened back up and stepped back from Nursey, although without his usual defensive velocity. Nursey waved at him as casual as he could. “Yo, Chowder. What are you doing here?”

“You guys, I was waiting for you outside!” Chowder whined despite his maintained smile and not even looking at them as he typed on his phone. When he looked back up at them he reeled his grin back. “We always go to Annie’s after practice on Thursdays, and I assumed today was no different.”

Nursey felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. Chowder had been texting them in their frogs group chat since before Dex and he had even started to talk. He hadn’t even noticed. His last text was a picture sent just now.

Dex straightened out his shirt, his ears still pink but his face uncharacteristically relaxed. “Sorry, Chowder. Coach Hall gave us an ultimatum to get our shit together, so Nursey and I took this moment to sort it all out.”

Nursey opened the picture. It was framed surprisingly well, Dex and him standing tall in the middle of the hallway of Faber in their hug. There was so much affection that bled from them through the picture, it made Nursey feel a bit bashful, the way Dex had seemed before the hug. Nursey wasn’t sure he understood what had happened, but he did feel as relieved as Dex seemed.

Nursey smirked at Chowder. “I needed to manifest my charm on him, C. Get him to come around.”

Dex rolled his eyes, still smiling. They’d walked out of Faber towards Annie’s, and Dex punched Nursey softly on his shoulder. “The same charm you’ve been manifesting this entire past month, huh?”

“You know it, dear.” After all, Nursey liked the way it all had worked out in the end.

\--

The buzzer rang loud and echoed on Nursey’s ears. He looked at Dex in the eye: this meant they’d made the Frozen Four. Next match would be the beginning of their last lap.  
Nursey took off his helmet and looked back. Chowder went and pulled him into a bear hug of a celly and skated towards Dex with Nursey still under his arm. He could see Whiskey out of the corner of his eye skating towards them, his smile uncharacteristically wide, not unlike when Jack would secure a win.

He wasn’t looking at Dex when he felt him pull him into a closer hug. He reciprocated and clapped his hand on Dex’s shoulder, their torsos stuck together by the side.

Nursey froze completely when he felt Dex’s lips rest against his temple.

He wasn’t sure what that kiss was a declaration of. Hell, he didn’t even know if it had been quite intentional. All he knew was that it paralyzed him and made his face feel much hotter than the entire match had.

Whiskey pulled the two of them into a hug, but at the moment Nursey felt more like a ragdoll than a hockey player.

To the side, he saw Dex smirk at him. He got his wits back enough to wink at him with a smile, once again beaming as he remembered what had brought this all about.

He smiled back at Whiskey, with his incredibly excited smile, and Nursey yelled out loud in celebration. He knew they’d make it this year. They had to win the Frozen Four. The team fit together too well now not to.

No picture surfaced of that kiss. Derek couldn’t be happier to keep that moment just to himself.

**Author's Note:**

> So yea. This totally was a 5+1 fic! I was like three or four vignettes into it and said, fuck it, it works best like this.
> 
> You all saw a couple of months ago that picture of the Liverpool FC players that looked kind of like they were boyfriends about to kiss, yea? That picture litterally held my hands as it compelled me to write this fic two months ago. I'm really, really not a writer, but I was cleaning up my computer just now and I found the file basically all written and ready to be published already, only like two paragraphs away from completion, and I couldn't just delete that now could I?
> 
> I tried my damn best at keeping Dex and Nursey's relationship ambiguous while providing material that's like "yup, definitely dtf." It's all very PG-13 though, maybe even rated E if not for language. I'm right on the fence with these two, where I can find good fic that sells me on them as a couple, but at the same time you really can't be coyote and be blowing the roadrunner, y'know what I'm saying? But what I do know about these two is that literally the entire team understands their dynamic better than Derek "Self-awareness is Not Chill" Nurse.
> 
> Anyway, hope you had fun with the fic. Luv ya.


End file.
